Australia

24.05.18

Poems I wrote during my stay in Australia (1978)

Dreams

You can dream
About anything.
You can dream
Of horror or of love.

There are different
Kinds of dreams.
There are
Daydreams,
Nightmares,
Good dreams,
Bad dreams,
Dream at night,
Dreams of holidays,
Dreams during school lessons,
Dreams inside and out,
Dreams you like,
And ones you don’t.

Some dream in colour,
Some in black and white.
Some dream of terror,
And some dream of fight.

Have you ever tried
To see or count
How many kinds
Of dreams you had,
And how you went about?

What colour?
What effect?
What time?
What place?
Did you like it?
Or did you not?

Some might say:
“You don’t dream.”
And some say:
“You are lost in dreams.”
Some say:
“You are a dreamer.”
Some say:
“I don’t know
How to dream.”

But it all
Doesn’t matter
Because
You can dream
About anything.
You can dream
Of horror or of love.

See and Feel

When you are blind what are colours to you?
What is yellow, red, black, white or blue?
What are trees, flowers, sunshine or life?
What are people, beauty, happiness or a wife?

There are no colours to blind people.
No sunshine, no rain, no snow.
No rivers, trees, flowers, high or low.
No beauty, no happiness, no life.

But there is help for those blind.
Help for them to see again.
Help to see happiness, sunshine.
Help for a better way to live.

Then there are colours for us blinds.
There is yellow, red, black, white and blue.
There is sunshine, rain, snow and life.
There is happiness, kind people, joy and beauty.

You can see trees, flowers and fields.
You can see creeks making rivers forming the sea.
You can see hills, mountains and plains.
You can see houses, light and nature.

If you can see life is to you like music.
Like music never ending, soft and happy.
Like it’s pulling you up and out of the darkness;
Out of the darkness to see life, happiness and beauty.

This is how you feel when you can see again.
Full of happiness, never ending happiness.
Life is worth living for you again.
Being able to see and happiness make life.

My Home

My home is on a hill with a river nearby.
The country in which it lays has a lot of rivers.
It has high mountains, hills, valleys,
plains and a coast.
It has creeks, rivers, lakes and a part of the sea.

My home is a big house on a hill.
From there you can have a view over the river.
Far away you can see a village
on the opposite hill.
At night you can see a lot of lights around it.

My home is my castle on a hill.
On the other side of the hill are more houses
But none of them are like mine.
None of them have got a big beautiful garden.

My home has a lot of things.
It has got people living in it.
It has got a cat, mice, a guinea pig and birds.
It has got flowers and trees and children.

My home has seen a lot of changes.
First there was just my home.
Then came more houses and homes.
With them came streets, factories,
cars and people.

My home is old and is good.
It was built on a hill for good view.
But man came and rubbished the land round it.
Now it is just a house like the others.

My home is different from the others still.
It is old and can tell a lot of stories.
It knows who is kind and who is bad.
My home is the only one like that.

(Written as an homage to the place I had lived in for over five years as a childfrom the ages 5½ up to 11.)

Oh, What A Lovely Day!

When I wake up in the morning,
And I wake with a yawning,
It was a sunny day,
Which, if I may say,
Helps me in my learning.
Oh, what a lovely day!

I got out of bed with haste,
The day I did not want to waste,
I ate my toast and drank my tea,
It couldn’t have been any better for me,
Of breakfast I’m not going to boast.
Oh, what a lovely day!

I went out to play with my friends,
And we held each others hands,
Then I realized with a shock,
The whole, so very big, in my sock,
Which I still had to mend.
Oh, what a lovely day!

Then my mother called me for lunch,
And told me to bring the whole bunch,
We were having tortoise in the shell,
Which tastes so good, oh well,
And also gives a good crunch.
Oh, what a lovely day!

After that we went back to play,
And so I spend the whole day,
We also swam in the sea,
Which was very good for me,
I want to be a captain, if I may.
Oh, what a lovely day!

And we had a good supper,
In the living room, the upper,
And then I went to bed,
What really wasn’t bad,
And I dreamt all night about the supper.
Oh, what a lovely day!

Times Have Changed

I don’t know her anymore.
I can’t get across to her.
The way she acts,
And talks, and
The things she wears
Are so different from my time.

She doesn’t understand.
And I don’t understand her.
I say: “Please, wear a dress
When we go and visit grandma.”
She says: “Why should I?
I like jeans better.”

I like her, and no
Doubt she likes me,
But times have changed.
The youth is different now
Than it was thirty years ago.

(For mother’s day in 1978.)

An Imagnerary Plant

The plant looks like a teddy bear,
All hairy, and very, very big and any shape.
It is green with orange dots all over,
And it grows on sandstone ground.

The plant feels like a dog’s fur,
All rough and prickly.
But its orange spots feel like cat’s fur,
All soft and smooth.

When you pick it from the ground
It makes the sound of a frogmouth walking.
Sometimes in the night the plant seems to be alive
And makes the sound of a pig grunting.

You eat the plant cooked.
It tastes like cow meat and
Together with onions and egg sauce
It tastes like horse meat.

When you cook the plant
It smells like burnt fur
And also like burning trees.
But when it grows it smells like a flower.

The Edge Of The World

From your place at home
You have to cross
The big, silent ocean
Till you reach the distant mountains.

There live people watched
By a doglike mountain
And by a face
Belonging to Nobody.

The people there live close together
Trying not to fall off
The edge of the world
Where it goes down endlessly.

There are lost objects
To be found near the edge
Belonging now to Nobody
And the doglike mountains.

But I warn you not
To got there because
You can not return
And have to stay forever.

Spine-Chiller

The thing was called “It”.
It was inside a small building
Pulsing and vibrating,
Pulling you towards itself.

You don’t think or act
Anymore or even breathe
In your own way.
It dominates your life.

It is ugly looking
Bloody, red and grey.
It throws out a purple light.
“It” or “The Thing” was

An oversized, ugly,
Pumping, blood dripping,
Overpowering and very
Mean and selfish

B R A I N

News

My time in Australia was only three years, the poetry time was even shorter.
Luckily I had kept all of these written works to be able to present them here.